The Best of Friends

"The Best of Friends" is a play adapted from the actual letters of three friends: George Bernard Shaw (the famous Irish playwright and critic), a nun, played by Wendy Hiller, and a museum curator, played by John Gielgud. It depends completely, but completely, on the acting and writing for its impact. There are no breathtaking locations (although the sets are attractive), no lively action, nor any tricky camera-work here. Only these three actors are featured in the entire play, and we learn of their warm, friendly and often hilarious relationship through the words that these gifted actors speak. The "dialogue"(if you can really call it that) is brilliantly witty, and the mind boggles at the kind of literate conversation that went on between these three friends, and at the thought that there actually was a time when people wrote letters like this.